It can be hard to love her...

My oldest child is eight. She came to me at four after living through hell. She had been neglected and abused most of her small life her mom had many men in and out of her life some of whom she let do whatever they wanted to her kids as long as they still supported her. Then my daughters older sibling decided to go to the police because she couldn't stand being raped one more time.
When bio mom found out, she uprooted her four children and drug them all the way here to my town 3 hours away and moved in with her brother and his paramour. Her brother abused her, when she was a child, he was also into heavier drugs than she was. She is a drinker, she drinks her way out of any stressful situation. Well down here my child felt a new kind of life, one of constant beating and starvation.
The Uncle and his girlfriend were out of their minds. They beat my daughter and my son (the least favored two) with a vengeance. When she came to me she had over 27 cigaret burns on her body and too many to count belt marks on her legs, she also had rope marks around her wrists and ankles. (Her brother was worse.) She came into care the day after a severe beating. Her brother was left for dead, and would have died if not for the ten year old sister. (Mom was passed out.)

The mom only brought her son into the hospital because she was mad that the girlfriend stole a pack of her cigarettes and wanted to get her into trouble.

My daughter looked like a child on one of the "feed the children" ads. She was skin and bones with a bloated belly caused by starvation. She had a vocabulary of a one year old, but knew how to tie her shoes, because her uncle beat her if they weren't tied. SHe didn't know how to eat with silverware or understand why she had her own bed. Se didn't want to change her clothes because it was the only outfit she had. She had two emotions, absent and rage. There was no child there.

I am writing this now because I need to remember this. I need to think about this every day. Especially now. She was doing great. so you forget about this sometimes and begin to expect her to meet up to your expectations. Then last fall we had an awful scare and the state almost removed her from me, all because of a misunderstanding. Her workers were all fighting for us. Then my daughter began a steady spiral down and I forgot about her past, I just remembered about how good she had been doing. I fought for her to be back, without realizing how far she still was from where she came. We also have all of this paperwork issues that have postponed the adoption for over a year now, trying to get it all settled. She needs that adoption.

Today she acted like a selfish little stubborn eight year old. Nothing extreme, or "bad" even, just pushing my buttons. I over reacted. I want my daughter from last summer back, and the last few weeks she had been doing so good again that her attitude today made me lose some needed hope. I asked her "Don't you care about me?" and she didn't respond. It wasn't a fair question especially when emotions were charged, but I took it hard that she couldn't just say yes. WHy doesn't she say she loves me when emotions are hard? I know why and I just wrote why, but sometimes in the moment it is hard for me too. I will need to do some damage control after today, but this felt good finally putting her suffering into words, it will help imprint them into my brain so when I start feeling disappointed I can remember where she came from.

When it starts to feel hard to love her, I can remember why she needs it more.